Heil Harris!

oratory. He talked for minutes on end at high speed in a thick accent, rising in frenzy, turning crimson with rage and then smiling at his own satirical wit. Then he seemed to lose interest until the next outburst.
    “Mrs. Peel,” he said suddenly. “Why are you in this movement?”
    His gaze was so firm that she couldn’t play for time while she worked out the answer he expected. “I drifted into it. I became involved in an incident at Throgmorton Hall and Cynthia took me along to the next meeting. There I met Colonel Hayburn.”
    “She obviously had the right spirit, Ludwig—”
    “You’re a fool, Hayburn. You drink too much and you enjoy pandering to the tastes of the mob. You’re like Goering. Fat and good natured, lazy and corrupt. Tonight I was watching Mrs. Peel’s interrogation and I admired its efficiency. It was brutal without being self indulgent. A rare combination.”
    “I told you she was ruthless—”
    “Shut up. I can see that she will be useful. The only question is whether she feels deeply with us. Within weeks there will be pressures put upon our leadership and the slightest wavering will be disastrous. I shall need absolute loyalty.”
    Emma risked an answer. “Loyalty is something between us, it doesn’t depend on whether I believe in Keynesian economics or the theory of eternal ice. A project like this requires one man with vision, not thirty people with theories of their own.”
    Harris stared at her for a tense moment. “Intelligent,” he said at last. “I have never found beautiful women very useful in politics. But Madame Dubarry was probably useful. Right, I have decided. Mrs. Peel, you will take over from Colonel Hayburn while he is away, and you will take the opportunity of revitalising his rabble in every way. It is an army, and it needs military discipline. It needs to expand, and it needs to be ready for attack. Show me your programme tomorrow at noon.”
    He appeared to have dismissed her with those words. “Excuse me,” she intruded, “but how long will Colonel Hayburn be gone?”
    “Seven days.”
    She nodded. For the next ten minutes she sat back and listened to Hayburn’s protestations that the Werewolves were his department and he couldn’t leave his regiment for a week at such short notice.
    “It is necessary,” shouted Harris. “We must look after our interests in Bavaria before the N.P.D. beats us to reclaiming them. Can you imagine what would happen if the Germans had so much wealth at their disposal? They would be independent, supreme. You will go there immediately. I shall always be the world leader of our movement.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I must always be the leader.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Albert Speer has been out of prison for several months now, and I don’t trust him. He tried to murder me once, and he probably knows too much. Yes, yes, I know, he’s a bureaucrat, but he has ambitions as well. We must act immediately.”
    Colonel Hayburn was entirely crushed. “I know what to do.”
    Ludwig Harris nodded impatiently. They were both dismissed. But as his wife Eva was showing them out, Harris called Emma back. “I am worried about our security,” he said. “Give it special thought for tomorrow.”
    “I will.”
    “Too many things have gone wrong with Hayburn’s people. The murder of Flamborough will have to be cleared up, and communist spies will have to be punished. But I’m particularly worried about a man called Steed; he is an under-cover agent who spent some months in Berlin at the end of the war, and I want you to kill him.”
     

Spies always travel light
     
    The rail journey from Partenkirchen to Innsbruck is stark, majestic and intimidating. It winds rapidly through the mountains high above the valley of the Inn. Steed peered down, God-like, on the river and the tiny road. There were people on foot and motor-cars crawling slowly along but they were dwarfed by the Tirolian Alps opposite. Amid scenery like this it was difficult not to despise the small grocer sitting in the same carriage or the solid fraulein in the comer who was legally entitled to call herself frau.
    Steed left the train at Mittenwald. The rest of the journey to Einsiedeln would have to be made by road. He braced himself for the worst and went into the nearest car hire firm. They could only offer him a Volkswagen and when he asked whether they had anything safer they became intensely nationalistic.
    “My dear fellow, everyone knows that the Bentley is